Uchuu Kyoudai – 38

Sometimes Uchuu Kyoudai just hits all the right buttons. I feel slightly at a loss for words following this episode – there was so much emotion and power to be found over the course of its twenty-odd minutes that it’s hard to organise my thoughts. The results at the end of last episode, while effective, never really hit me as hard as I would’ve liked. They didn’t have quite the impact that I’d expected them to have. In retrospect, I see this as an extremely clever use of directing and storytelling. This is a show that has constantly done what it can to let us live vicariously through Mutta – to experience the same things he does.

That scene was certainly powerful, but it was only a beginning. Things haven’t sunk in, not for Mutta, and not for us either – the climax remains obscured in such a way that we feel that same slightly unreal feeling he does. That it wouldn’t sink in is fair – sometimes you convince yourself that things won’t work out, especially if you have a rather pessimistic mindset such as the one Mutta frequently exhibits. He’d begun believing strongly in luck, worrying that it had been wasted on trivial matters instead of the one place where it really counted. That kind of mindset makes it easier to deal with things when they fall through, but also makes it harder to believe when dreams and wishes come true. For the entire car journey, he sits looking lost as we share in this relatively low-tension period.

The moment when Mutta steps into the press conference was handled magnificently. Mutta’s dawning amazement, the individual shots of the other successful candidates over a backdrop of flashing cameras, the sudden increase in the intensity of the music, and the buzz of the press all contributed into making this a spectacular scene. This is it – the reveal of the full lineup, the beginning of the realisation of Mutta’s dreams, and the road on to the next part of the story. For me, this has to be one of the greatest moments in the entirety of Uchuu Kyoudai to date – a culmination of expert direction, masterful writing, and beautiful music.

But it doesn’t end there either. Uchuu Kyoudai still has more up its sleeve, and this still isn’t the moment when everything clicks for Mutta. Until now, I had considered the roles of many of the side characters who appeared earlier in the story to be over, and in many other works, they would be. In a story about becoming an astronaut, those who fail along the way are no longer really necessary to its continuation. But Uchuu Kyoudai is not strictly a story about becoming an astronaut – it’s a story about achieving your dreams. Every one of the former candidates appeared or was mentioned in some form this week, none of them forgotten. In fact, it was Furuya’s words of encouragement – the words from a guy who was always at odds with Mutta – along with his continued desire to push towards his own dreams that finally caused everything to sink in for Mutta. It’s perhaps one of the things that makes the story seem so organic – that everyone has a role to play, even when they would’ve been dropped entirely in another work. I was right about Mizoguchi too – he’s grown a little after his failure, coming to understand what he did wrong and able to put any bad blood with Kenji or Mutta behind him and smile.

tl;dr:@MoombaDS – It takes a little while, but things finally begin to sink in for Mutta. #SpaceBros

Random thoughts:

Mutta realises that having a benefactor like Hoshika can be both a blessing and a curse…

The press obviously wanted him to say ‘Y~ay!!’ Damn you Mutta, why didn’t you say it?!

Hopefully next week we might actually get some hints as to what the mysterious shining object Hibito saw was.

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here – whether there will be time skips to get Mutta onto the moon before the show ends or not.

If they time skip to Mutta in outer space that would be a travesty. I think with only 13 episodes left they should not go there (time skip). However I would love to see Mutta and Itou become a couple before the series ends.

Some minor time skips might be necessary, don’t forget the moon is just a stepping stone for Mutta, his goal is to reach Mars as he mentioned few times (or be the first person -Japanese or not- to land on it).

I’m also wondering what happens from now on, but I don’t seem to notice any signs of the anime ending in 3 episodes… it can’t be. I do believe it’s gonna be extended, specially since I just found out there’s already a new opening song scheduled to start on january! They wouldn’t change the OP only to finish the series right after, right?
It’ll be “Small World” by Fuji Fabric. It’s even on their official single’s site: http://www.fujifabric.com/special/smallworld/

Now, about the episode… Awesome as usual. It’s funny how I didn’t like Ya-san at first and he managed to become one of my favorites. I do hope he’ll make it to space someday!
I also really like how Fukuda-san showed up… I’m glad they didn’t simply cut those characters out, it was nice to see them again like this.

I do hope they’ll keep the anime going so that the ending isn’t rushed or anything. I always feel uneasy about an anime when I know the manga is still coming out, but… I checked the scanlations and saw they’re almost as far as the anime – a little after Hibito landed on the moon. However, that’s still volume 7 and there are 19 volumes published in Japan. So there’s still a lot to come if the anime chooses to follow the manga’s story… I can’t wait to find out!
Thanks for another great review.

P.S.: I really laughed hard when Mutta read Ya-san’s e-mail about how he couldn’t stop staring at Serika and that now the whole country knows… Mutta’s reaction was priceless too! But that was probably the first time someone else told him directly that they knew about his thoughts on Serika-san, though many of the others must have noticed already. Of course it had to be Ya-san, always speaking his mind!

This episode really just slammed into me — I was moved by the last episode, but allowing us to recapture the brilliant part of the first arc and see old characters who we deeply cared about really just made this episode even more poignant.

I hope this show finds a way to continue even if it’s OVAs or specials moving forward – I know we haven’t seen that done too often except with old shows like Hikaru no Go but this show seems to be quite popular enough to merit that special treatment.